The present invention relates to wall construction, and, more particularly, to a form of dry wall construction in which wall panels are removably secured to a supporting structural framework comprised of studs or the like, particularly fabricated studs with flanges parallel to and supporting the back faces of the panels, by means of fastening clips. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved form of fastening clip.
It is extremely desirable, particularly in commercial building construction, to provide building partitions and walls and systems for assembling such partitions and walls in which the entire partition or wall may be easily removed or in which individual panel members making up the partition or wall can be removed, rearranged, or replaced with doors, windows, or other openings or units. Numerous systems and wall construction methods have been proposed for accomplishing this result. Many of the systems proposed rely on the use of specially constructed panels which permit them to be removably disposed on the supporting structure and/or utilize supporting structures, e.g. studs, which are necessarily of special design and hence expensive to manufacture.
Typical of demountable dry wall construction systems which use fastening clips to removably secure panels to wall studs is the system shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,922,764 to Downing, Jr.
The fastening clips used in the system disclosed in the Downing patent, as well as fastening clips used in other prior art systems have suffered from the disadvantage that, if the wall panel is warped or bowed, a flush joining between abutting panels is difficult to achieve. Additionally, most prior art fastening clips which employ resilient gripping of the support member by the clip suffer from the disadvantage, not only that the clip can easily slip off of the support member, but that it is held to the support member with an easily yieldable resilient finger and may permit the panel to be flexed away from the support member, even though the clip may not be disengaged from the support member. This is particularly true in the cases where the wall panel is warped and hence the fastening clip is subjected to higher than normal disengagement force. Nevertheless, such types of clip have been considered necessary in order to make the clip easily engageable with the support either in lateral movement toward the support or in movement directly toward the support at substantial right angles to the face of the panel.